Why Do We Newbies Suffer?

[ct43]

I know what you mean. I think many have this belief that Ableton Live is super easy to use. Its not. Put this software in front of a complete newbie or an experienced daw user for that matter and it can be a very head scratching experience. + it just got a lot more complex with version five.

For a complete newbie Live is going to take quite a bit of time to get to know.

Then again this just shows that Ableton Live is maturing with each release.

To be honest I find it really easy to use, thats why I use it! + My friend who doesnt really use computers for much music picked it up in a couple of days and a 13 year old I know picked it up really fast as well.

Where you really used to another DAW before you came to Live? Maybe that might explain it as Ableton does have a different workflow to say Cubase / Logic...

But overall id say it was the easiest music prog ive ever used and it makes music fun for me about 80 - 90% of the time. Cubase was like 50% enjoyment 50% hard work, so yes I am greatful for the ease of use!

[Komplex]

read the fucking manual noobs!!




j/k

hehe, thats no joke

Once you have bought Live, try the manual BEFORE asking a very basic and obvious question... demo users can be forgiven sometimes and in that case its best not to post a harsh reply.

What gets me sometimes is when a noob asks something, perhaps its a basic question and an experienced member posts some long rubbish making fun of the noob (this happens quite a bit, often by the moderators in another board I post on). It takes the same amount of time to post a short answer without coming off like a kunt...

[cmcg37]

To the new & old ones,

This forum is for all of the users to exchange ideas and questions. It is good practice to do your homework before you ask a question.

I don't think anyone should be discouraged to use this forum. Take a lood at the Propellerheads Reason forum and you will see an environment with nothing but trolls.

People new to Live; if you have a question, do your research then come to forum. Some Noob questions have had me stumped and I have learned from the Noob. Don't discourage questions.

IMHO,

CMcG37

[stuffe]

I'm new to all this, have asked a few questions, and by and large have received a lot of good replies.

I think most newbies problems (and this is with all things, not just Live) is that we don't really know what we are asking. It's OK saying read the manual, or search the archive, but search for what? So your typical newbie question is always a bit generic, and therefore has been heard a thousand times before by the non newbies, who get tired of giving the answer.

Having said that, there is no excuse for the person who was asking to be sent the manual, or where he could download it - it must surely take more time to register for a forum and start posting, than to check out the downloads page....

[MrYellow]

There was a guy here last month or the month before....

u could tell he had opened live for the first time 5 mins before posting....

He posted a separate thread for every single little tiny thought that went
though his head.... "I wonder if"..... before even trying. By day's end there
was something like 15 threads with questions that can be answered simply
by actually trying.

-Ben

[MrSleep]

hay noobs!!! group hug. .......now,,, lets think of a realy dumb arse question and give it to em hay.

[telekom]

THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION IS CLEARLY STATED ON PAGE 139 OF THE MANUAL IN THE SECTION "WHY NEWBIES SUFFER". SO RTFM !!!

Only kidding... :):)

I think it's pretty tolerant on here. I think the people who make a fuss and groutch at newbies have got some issues... if you can't be bothered taking the time to answer a newbie, why bother taking the time to write them a sniffy reply? As someone else stated, sometimes when you're a noob you don't know where to look or what you're looking for.

;);)[/b]

[montrealbreaks]

It's easy for old hat live users from version 1 to say that Live is an easy prog to learn.

v1 was pretty shit simple.

Live, 2 was fairly simple, but Live 3 (the addition of clip envelopes) was hard for some people to get their heads around.

Midi in Live 4 was a godsend (for me anyways, some opposed it) but again, all this learning was in incremental steps for me, since I was using this prog since the day the first version hit the shelves (I had a copy pre-ordered!)

Anyways, my point is that for somebody just opening version 4 for the first time, they will have to get their head not only around the session view (until recently a uniquely live feature), but audio routing, effects, clip envelopes, envelopes in the arrange view, midi routing, etc etc.

That said; I answered a lot of very basic questions on Live versions 1-3, but I won't re-post them. For Live 4, I have put up some posts on workflow practices, since there were a lot more people on the boards by this time last year...

[sweetjesus]

having started to teach a friend of mine with no comprehension of music software whatsoever helped me gain some insights into the n00b perspective... which by the way is hard since i've been toying with music software since i've been 16.

basically my friend says stuff like.. 'i want it to play drums' or 'i want it to play bass'..'why the hell doesnt everything just play in time', which is fair enough because as a new person he's just thinking of what he wants to do and since he has not familiarised with concepts such as rendering etc... there is no intuitive way for him to break down the concept of "i want to send my song to a mate" into:

- i must select the length of the track
- hit file>render
- set preferences
- convert to mp3
- attach as email

So yeah give the n00bs a break and maybe be more constructive i.e. "check out page 29 of the manual".

[Angstrom]

Sure, everyone has to start somewhere.... but I think somehow we feel tainted by association with a 'beginners' audio application!

[AlexG]

Amen Bruvva!

Live is no begginers app! I've been writing for years, hardware seq's and multitrack tape, Notator, Logic, Cubase, Cakewalk, ProTools... without the BACKGROUND in how electronic music composition works, it can be difficult to grasp the potential of sofware that is as flexible as Live, and incidentally the majority of my sound sources still come from oldskool hardware and linear multitrack orchestration. Live just sets you free.....! In response to the comment on the number of people taking up live, I say its all good! Mo Fool those who think just using the 'same software as XYZ' will make you the next 'XYZ', its not just what you've got, its what you do with it that counts! Where Live differs is it opens up many possibilities, it is only the scope of the user's imagination and creative flair that determines the quality of the end result....

$0.02

[hoffman2k]

I think the main problem is that some people have outgrown this forum.
Everybody was a newbie at some point.

Plus. Live's userbase keeps growing.
So there will always be newbies.
And most of them are the laziest people when it comes to READING.
Yet they can read just enough to register on this forum and ask their question.
But they can't read enough to search if the question hasn't been asked a gazillion times.

But in their defense. The search function on this forum is crap.

When Ableton comes out with their Livepacks. They should do it on another website with it's own forum.
So that this forum can remain the same unmoderated joy.
And so that advanced users and us pom-pom wearing cheerleaders can have a place where we can discussions about Live. (without having to explain every damn aspect of live over and over again along the way)

Also. The FAQ should have to be updated. Most of the questions are still related to Live 3. And the tutorials on this site are also outdated.

Whats up Ableton? i thought you hired a guy to do this all

[hambone1]

I have all the tolerance in the world for anyone who has searched the forum, read the manual, done the tutorials, bought and digested 'Ableton Live 4 Power!', and has a rudimentary grasp of English grammar and common human courtesy.

After that, there are no dumb questions...

[divonic]

Here are a few problem that I have noticed:

Newbies don't know the terminology. It is worse when the question is from someone who is a computer music or sequenced music newbie.

Newbies generally don't give enough information beacuse they don't really know what they are asking.

People have a tendency to get aggrevated when things are not working as they expect. Many newbies expect that they will be banging out tracks like Moby as soon as they install the program. Because they expect instant gratification with a program; when they don't get it they come on here and insult the program. Many people on this forum love this program and the people who can most likely answer your question probablly love it.

[drush]

...expect that they will be banging out tracks like Moby as soon as they install the program...

that would be rather unfortunate...

but yeah, good point. don't expect miracles. this IS the most intuitive DAW ever but it's not going to do the work for you.